The Warrior-Maid and the Oath of God
by VR Trakowski
Summary: Everything has changed. Zelda carries on.


**This is for Cincoflex, who isn't allowed to read it until she sees the film. Many thanks to my mother, who remembers what packages were like in the 1960s!**

 **(I'm still working on _Rise_. My laptop died...)**

* * *

She'd told Elisa once that a good marriage was built on a lot of lies, and Zelda stood by that. But sometimes truth got the better of things.

She finished packing the worn suitcase that had lived under the bed for the whole of her marriage, and snapped it shut, sighing a little. It wasn't much to take with her, not much to go on with. But she knew Brewster, and she knew she'd have one chance to make her point and a clean break. She didn't fear her man, but sweet Lord, she did not want a _mess_. Not right now.

Zelda stepped into her shoes with a silent groan of discomfort and pulled on her coat, then set her hat carefully on her head and picked up the case. Brewster had come home just as usual, dropping in front of the television without a word, but he'd be wanting supper soon.

It was time.

Zelda straightened her spine and walked briskly out of the bedroom, listening to her heels click as she reached the kitchen linoleum. Brewster turned his head at the sound, blinking and then frowning at the sight of her.

"What're you dressed up for? Something at church?"

Zelda pulled in a breath and let it out, calm, calm. "I'm leaving you, Brewster."

Some imp in the back of her mind chuckled wickedly at the sight of his jaw dropping open. Zelda went on before he could muster up words. "Your dinner's in the oven and I did the grocery shopping yesterday, so you're good for a week. Laundry's done too."

She strode towards the front door, the cracked suitcase handle nipping at her fingers. Behind her, Brewster sputtered. " _Leaving_ me? Have you gone out of your mind, woman?"

Zelda ignored that. She heard the chair creak as he stood up, and wondered if he would try to stop her.

Her hand was on the knob when he spoke again, and this time he sounded bewildered, like a child. "Why?"

Zelda hesitated, then turned back. "You ain't said a thing to me for years, not one thing worth listening to, and then you go and spill your guts to that crazy man and get my best friend _killed,_ Brewster!" Her voice rose. "Elisa's dead because of you, and I'm _done_. Done taking care of someone who doesn't think I'm worth a simple thank-you."

Brewster stared like a stunned fish, and the image almost made her laugh out loud, after all that had happened the last few weeks. But he didn't say a word.

Zelda gave him a short nod. "Back to normal, I see," she said, and walked out.

He didn't come after her. It hurt, and she had to lock her jaw against the swelling in her throat as she waited for the bus, hoping she got a decent driver this time.

The uniformed man ignored her when she paid her fare, which was about the best she could hope for, and Zelda sat down at the back of the bus with a sigh. The pain had ebbed some, replaced by resolve. Her mama would be horrified, bless her soul, but her mama wasn't around to know.

 _It's time._

* * *

Zelda wasn't too sure at first about moving in.

For one thing, the rent was pretty high, and it wasn't a neighborhood with a lot of Negro folks; Giles convinced the landlord somehow with a mix of threats and promises, and assured Zelda that the little man would calm down soon enough. She wasn't sure she believed him.

But the lab had paid her a _lot_ of hush money, and her new job at the elementary school was almost as good, even if the kids managed to make messes in the most impossible places.

It was more than strange, though, to be living among her best friend's left-behind things, to sit on her furniture and drink out of her teacups. Particularly when Zelda knew what had been going on in the apartment, those last few days. She couldn't bring herself to use the tub for a _week_ , even when she'd scrubbed it out; she'd bathed out of the sink instead, eyeing the stained porcelain warily.

But she _missed_ Elisa. She missed trying to keep up with Elisa's flying hands, her shy smiles, the way she seemed content in herself by sheer grit.

 _And the way she listened to you go on. Don't forget that._ Zelda huffed a laugh at herself as she sorted through Elisa's books, half of them in the Italian Zelda couldn't read.

The little alarm clock buzzed, and Zelda dropped the books to shut it off. _Going to replace_ _ **that**_ _as soon as I can. Brrrr._

Scrambled eggs and toast - buttered on _one_ side, thank you - and a couple of sausages. Zelda knocked on Giles' door briskly, plate in her other hand, and listened to him shuffle up to it, already talking before he even threw the lock.

"Oh, this is so kind of you, you really don't have to. Elisa spoiled me, you know." Giles waved her inside, beaming, and Zelda smiled back.

"I know I don't have to. But she'd come back to haunt me if I didn't make sure you ate something."

 _You'd think I'd get tired of looking after some fool man,_ she thought as Giles pulled out a chair for her and went to fetch the coffee. Habit or gratitude or both, she wasn't sure what had made her fill a plate that first time; but somehow they'd become friends of a sort.

 _And at least he appreciates a decent meal._ Giles bustled back with two cups, and Zelda didn't even mind that hers was too sweet - the old man forgot half the time that she didn't take sugar like Elisa had.

Zelda fought back a pang at the thought, and watched Giles dig into the food, mumbling compliments as he ate. Poor soul was lonelier than she was.

"Any news from Brewster?" he asked when he finished, wiping his mouth with a paint-stained napkin. Zelda shook her head.

"He's still thinking I'll come slinking back. Which I won't. That's done now."

Giles shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry," he said. "That's just sad."

"It is what it is," Zelda said, and gestured at the draped canvas. "How's it going?"

"Oh, very well, very well indeed!" Giles stood up and lifted the drape away carefully.

"Oh, my." She felt her eyes widen. There they were, Elisa and the fish-man - or there was the fish-man, and Elisa peering over his shoulder, wearing a smile Zelda had only seen her wear recently. The detail was...amazing.

"Just how many sketches did you _make_ of that critter?" Zelda forced her eyes away from its backside and gave Giles a cockeyed look.

He waved a hand. "Well, we both had nothing to do. But it's good, isn't it?"

She softened. "It's very good. It's _them_."

Giles beamed again. "It is, isn't it?" He reached for a brush and a tube of paint, and Zelda sat back to finish her coffee, amused.

Never in her life would she have expected to be in this situation. But what they'd gone through had changed them both, and Zelda figured becoming friends was inevitable.

 _After all, who else can we talk to about it all?_

"I dreamed about her again last night," Giles said abruptly, not turning away from his canvas.

"Oh?" Zelda kept her voice neutral. Giles' dreams tended to make her flesh creep, even though they were innocuous.

"Just a glimpse." He knew she didn't like them, but he seemed compelled to tell her anyway. He drew a delicate stripe, focusing on the shadows of the piece. "She was floating in the water - _in_ the water, not on - and her hair was a cloud around her, twice the length it used to be."

 _Wishful thinking_. Zelda didn't say it; they'd already had that argument.

"Her skin was different, though. Still ivory, but with tiny glistening scales here and there. Not like _his_." Giles pointed with the brush, his nose two inches from the canvas. "Softer, more shimmering."

"Mm." Zelda drank the last of her coffee.

"She was smiling at me," Giles said softly. "She said hello."

His free hand jerked in an aborted sign; Zelda didn't think he even noticed.

She loosed a sigh into her cup, and said nothing. Let Giles keep his gentle delusion; who could it hurt, after all? Zelda knew her friend was dead even if the police had found nothing when they'd dragged the canal; she'd been _shot_ , for pity's sake. Either the fish-man had taken her body with him, or it had washed out to sea with the rain.

Zelda tried not to resent the creature for Elisa's death. Truth was, Elisa's muteness had made it easy to baby her, that and the way she seemed sometimes to live life in a dream; but Zelda knew that Elisa had been a grown woman, capable of making her own choices. Which she had.

 _She must be resting content, anyway. He got away_.

It still hurt, though; and sometimes Zelda felt like Elisa's death had taken everything familiar from her. The loss and the resentment had settled into a knot under her breastbone, a stolid, familiar ache.

Something soft brushed her leg, and then Thor jumped up to settle in her lap. Giles hummed as he squeezed more paint from a tube, something in three-quarter time, and Zelda thought idly that he must be doing something new with his hair, because she could hardly see his bald spot anymore.

Zelda stroked the cat, and thought about change.

* * *

It was winter when the package arrived, a year and more after Elisa's death; a cold and gray winter, always freezing but never any snow. Everything looked grimy, and the wind blasted down the streets like a living thing hunting prey. Zelda was always glad to get inside, even if her apartment was always overheated from the radiators and Giles' smelled like stale air and too much turpentine. It was depressing, and Zelda thought tiredly that spring was taking much too long to show up.

But that Friday there was a box outside her door - a big one, almost suitcase-sized. Zelda brought it in with her, too worn and chilled to pay much attention until she'd got her coat off and the coffee started, but once the pot was perking she found the scissors and sat down for a closer look.

It was a wooden box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, nothing unusual, except the stamps were all foreign and her address was written in shaky block print, almost like a child's writing. Zelda frowned at the thing; nobody had any reason to send her a package just now, and she didn't recognize the handwriting.

But she cut the string open anyway, and peeled away the paper carefully. _Lord knows what's in it. After what I've seen…_

Fortunately the scissors were sturdy enough to pry the top off the box. When it came free, a rush of scent poured out, sweet and green and _alive_ , and Zelda stared down at the contents in astonishment.

The box was packed to the brim with wide flat leaves and blossoms in green and white and gold, gleaming wetly in the harsh kitchen light. They were like nothing Zelda had ever seen; when she dug her fingers into the leaves and pulled a blossom free, it seemed almost to glow with its own light. Water dripped from its trailing root.

 _What…_

She stared at them for what felt like forever. There was absolutely no reason for them to look so healthy after who knew how long in the box - Lord help her, they should have been _frozen_. But the stem in her hand was no more than cool, and the plants looked as healthy as if they'd been uprooted just a minute before.

 _What am I supposed to_ _ **do**_ _with these?_

After a long while, Zelda rose and went into the bathroom. It was still faintly damp from her morning bath, smelling ever so slightly of mildew no matter how she scrubbed, but she ignored that, turning on the taps to fill the tub with warm water. When it was full nearly to the rim, she carried the box into the steamy room, and unpacked it one plant at a time, setting them carefully in the tub to float.

By the time the box was empty - and she had _no_ idea how the paper wrap had stayed dry - the water was all but invisible beneath the broad leaves. The luminous flowers floated on the surface like cups of mother-of-pearl, their centers golden.

"Well, you sure do look pretty." Zelda pursed her lips. "But I wasn't planning on turning the bathroom into a garden."

She left them there and went to drink her coffee, still puzzled.

Examining the wrapping paper told her nothing; she didn't recognize the stamps, and the cancellations were too smeared to be legible. There was no return address.

Slightly annoyed and a lot curious, Zelda smoothed out the paper to use later and set the box to dry. It couldn't possibly be Brewster; even when he'd been wooing her, his idea of a gift had been chocolates, never flowers.

She drank her coffee, made her supper and ate, and alternated between wondering who had sent her flowers, and trying not to think about it. Because in the back of her mind, she _knew_.

Just as well as she knew it was impossible.

Zelda slipped outside for a cigarette, cursing Duane silently as she always did, and hurried back in, chilled all over again. But when she stepped back inside the apartment, Zelda halted, astonished.

The overwarm air was rich with the perfume of the blossoms, thick and tropical but somehow not cloying. It was a sweet, clean odor that smelled somehow _alive_ , and Zelda breathed it in for a long moment before locking her door and pulling off her coat.

She walked slowly back into the bathroom. Nothing had changed, except that there seemed to be more blossoms than she remembered.

Something in her gave way, resistance fading. Slowly, Zelda undressed, folding her clothes neatly and setting them aside.

The floor was cold under her feet when she slipped into the water, and she didn't care when it splashed over the rim of the tub. The plants parted to receive her, then rejoined, brushing against her shoulders and collarbone, concealing her beneath the green. The water was warm and silky against her skin; the hard porcelain seemed to soften beneath her. The scent was intoxicating.

Zelda closed her eyes when the tears began, and let the smile out. "Okay, honey," she murmured, to the air, the water, the blossoms. "Maybe I'm wrong."

The ache in her chest dissolved in the warmth. For the briefest instant, she saw Elisa against her closed lids, mother-naked and suspended and laughing her silent laugh straight at Zelda, joyful and loving. Then she was gone.

Zelda chuckled and opened her eyes, reaching out to touch one blossom with the tip of her finger. "He'd better be taking good care of you."

There was no answer; but then, she didn't need one.

Zelda leaned back, and let the water cradle her.


End file.
